Audio systems, including telephonic communication systems, are currently in a status quo of “one sound fits all”, and do not provide an optimal sound quality to listeners. The diversity of different hearing profiles associated with the population of listeners, taken in conjunction with the increasing proportion of individuals reporting hearing issues, makes it very unlikely that a generic or default audio signal will provide an optimal sound quality and will be perceived at its full potential by all listeners, or even a majority of listeners. In light of this, the ability to have clear telephonic communication, most notably for those who have discordant hearing abilities, has become a pressing problem. Audio signal processing for communication purposes traditionally has fallen short of solving this problem. Hearing aids, although effective for improving speech comprehension for listeners, are still incredibly expensive and inaccessible for the vast majority of hearing impaired (HI) individuals. Furthermore, the use of hearing aids has been subject to social stigmatization, despite the prevalence of hearing loss across all age groups.
The most common compensation method employed by hard of hearing listeners during telephonic communication consists of a simple increase in handset volume. Less commonly, simple equalization (EQ) handset applications have been utilized. These applications apply gain(s) to frequencies in which a listener exhibits raised thresholds (see e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,138,178, 9,468,401 9,680,438, 9,898,248). Both techniques may enable a listener to better perceive conversation, however, the listener may simultaneously or subsequently experience loudness discomfort. This is because hearing impaired (HI) listeners have similar, or even reduced, discomfort thresholds when compared to normal hearing listeners, despite the hearing thresholds of such HI listeners being raised relative to normal hearing listeners. To this extent, the dynamic range of HI listeners is narrower and simply adding EQ or wide spectrum gain would be detrimental to the long-term hearing health of these HI listeners. Native applications do exist on handset devices that feature more advanced multiband compression techniques (see e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 6,944,474), however these are immensely underutilized as they require time intensive hearing tests and fitting. Moreover, hearing loss is widely undiagnosed—so adoption of these applications on a listener's device is relatively rare.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide more frictionless and effective telephonic processing methods that create seamless sound personalization and added clarity for HI listeners, as well as for listeners with mild to moderate hearing loss.